Action is the name of the game for this enormous film.

Rating: 8/10 (22 December 2013)

Giant robots versus giant alien sea monsters. What more could a geek ask for? Pacific Rim looked exciting right from the first trailer, aiming to unleash the action nerd in all of us. While there are some fumbles along the way, Pacific Rim succeeds in bringing larger-than-life action to the big screen.
One of the first things you notice about Pacific Rim is the outstanding CGI. The visuals are at a top tier quality, some of the best I've ever seen in film. The fictional Kaiju race of aliens are brought to life along with their formidable foes, the human built Jaegers, through eye- popping CGI that really helps set the tone for what this movie is all about: gigantic action. Pacific Rim does not falter in delivering some of the biggest action scenes in recent time. The battles between the Jaegers and Kaiju just keep getting bigger, badder, and more epic as the movie goes on. The sheer scale of these monster battles is large enough to put even a movie like Transformers to shame. Mastermind Guillermo del Torro is in the directors chair for this film, and his vision to create a large-scale, CGI glorified action film is executed very well. The action sequences are gargantuan, and are highly entertaining to say the least.
Where Pacific Rim thrives most is on the battlefield, focusing all of its attention on the clashes between the Jaegers and Kaiju. Where the movie falters is during the non-action scenes where it tries to tell an engaging story with characters you care about. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of action in this film, but too often does the movie stray away from the epic battles and tries to tell a smaller story inside this massive conflict, and it at times slows the movie down, nearly to a screeching halt. The plot is pretty straightforward, and while it has its short comings and clichés, it's good enough to be entertaining and at the same time not complete non-sense. Again, this is an action heavy movie, and when Pacific Rim gets too far away from that, it starts to show some of its weaknesses.
The cast does an OK job, with the better performances coming from Idris Elba and Charlie Hunnam as Stacker Pentecost and Raleigh Becket respectively. Charlie Day, one of my personal favorite actors, and best known for his work on It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, provides comedic relief but doesn't quite fit the bill for this movie and his character seemed almost annoying at times. Rinko Kikuchi plays Mako Mori, and her performance was far and away the worst of any of the cast members, showing almost no emotion in her acting. Overall the cast was mediocre only adding a more human element to the sort of monster vs. monster theme.
It won't keep you emotionally attached, it won't get you deep into its story, and it won't make you care for the small stories outside of the action. But what Pacific Rim will do, is provide exhilarating action sequences supplemented by stunning CGI and keep you largely entertained by the super-sized battles that only get bigger and better as the movie progresses.
8/10